Peter’s Place

Let’s call this one a “2 for 1″ rant. I’ll get the first one out of the way real quick off the bat here. While I wish to rant about idiot drivers on the New York State Thruway, the image at left (”borrowed” from Google Images) was taken along the New Jersey Turnpike. Why don’t we have 55MPH lanes on the Thruway yet? Our “fast” lanes are just 20MPH, and they just started appearing within the last year. Better than the original 5MPH lanes, but it seems many people still haven’t noticed the difference. They are the idiot drivers I wish to rant about today.

When the lanes were upgraded, the Thruway put up brand new signs, bigger and better than the old ones, clearly noting the speed limit has been increased to 20. And what do half of the people do? They still slow down to 5. (And yes, Murphy’s Law applies here: If I happen to be running late, the odds of getting stuck behind an idiot driver increases to at least 75%.)

Thankfully, it appears the Thruway realizes there are many people out there who don’t get it. So within the past month or so, they had crews come out and paint it on the pavement. There are large purple blocks, one after the other: EZPASS… ONLY… 20MPH. They even added special purple lines next to the white lines separating the different toll lanes. You have to be as blind as a hockey official to miss these things. And yet, I still see people slowing down below 20 all the time.

Why do they do it? Maybe some get scared when the light is still yellow as they’re “rapidly” approaching, so they slam on the brakes just to make sure it turns green. That really pisses me off, because I’ve usually got myself set up to perfectly “coast” on through without having to slam on the brakes. When the idiot in front of me suddenly slows down like that, I have to as well.

Maybe some people still think it’s 5MPH. I don’t know how, with all the new signs saying 20. You could blame the Thruway though… because it’s inconsistent. At most interchanges, the far-right lane in each direction is usually a dedicated E-ZPass lane. But the problem is, they usually have different speed limits.

At one end of the toll plaza, there’s a tiny office building. If you happen to be going through the dedicated lane(s) farthest from the building, the limit is 20 MPH. But if the lane is closer to the building, it’s just 5 MPH. Why? Because the employees “check in” at that building, and then must walk across those closer lanes in order to get to their booths. I understand the safety factor, but consider that the speed limit in most cities is 30 MPH. Apparently the Thruway Authority thinks its employees are less capable of crossing a single toll lane than Joe Q. Public trying to cross a typical two-lane city street.

So, at the very same interchange, you have traffic in one direction going 20 MPH with EZPass, and traffic in the other direction going 5 MPH. Some drivers probably just stick with 5 either way, just to make it simpler for themselves. Idiots. If it says 20, go 20. I don’t have time for this crap!